Frida Kahlo’s first-ever oil portray; an embroidery crafted by the artist at simply 5 years outdated; and a number of letters, jewellery, and childhood images: Come this fall, a brand new Frida Kahlo museum will reveal never-before-seen scenes from the Mexican artist’s exemplary life.
The prevailing Museo Frida Kahlo, housed within the Casa Azul (“Blue House”), the artist’s former residence in Mexico Metropolis’s Coyoacán neighborhood, shows suave components of the painter’s curated inventive life shared with Diego Rivera. The forthcoming Museo Casa Kahlo, in the meantime, will intimately discover the adolescence and familial relationships that shaped one of many world’s most recognizable artists.
Till now, Casa Roja (“Red House”) has been the personal residence of the descendants of Kahlo’s sister, Cristina. Kahlo had bought the house from her mother and father as a present for her sister, who was the one one among her siblings to have youngsters.
The prevailing Frida Kahlo Museum within the Casa Azul in Mexico Metropolis (photograph by way of Getty Pictures)
The house’s final resident — Kahlo’s grand-niece Mara Romeo Kahlo — introduced final month that Casa Roja can be transformed right into a museum with assist from a brand new nonprofit basis began by their household. Fundación Kahlo, primarily based in New York, introduced plans to spend money on Latin American and Indigenous artwork by grants and financial prizes alongside the creation of the brand new museum, although a spokesperson declined to touch upon award quantities.
The Kahlo household doesn’t function Casa Azul, the place Kahlo was born and died from a pulmonary embolism simply earlier than her forty seventh birthday, in keeping with her demise certificates, although some speculate she could have died by suicide. Upon Rivera’s demise, the couple donated their residence to the state of Mexico, which administers it below a belief managed by the nation’s central financial institution.
A spokesperson for the forthcoming Museo Casa Kahlo advised Hyperallergic that the 2 museums targeted on distinct components of Kahlo’s “life and legacy” and that no collaborations between the establishments had been underway. The forthcoming museum will try to seize who Kahlo was to her household and the essential moments in her childhood, the spokesperson mentioned, and also will invite modern Mexican, Latin American, and ladies artists to indicate in non permanent exhibitions.
The Museo Casa Kahlo tapped Adán García Fajardo, who at present leads Mexico Metropolis’s Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, as its inaugural director. The spokesperson for the museum mentioned its first exhibitions are nonetheless being deliberate forward of its September 27 opening date.
Amongst Kahlo’s belongings-turned-artifacts already accessible to the general public within the famed Casa Azul is the frilly contraption designed by her mom that allowed her to color within the supine place as she recovered from a catastrophic bus accident. Furnishings acquired by Rivera and Kahlo, the artist’s iconic robes, and greater than 200 private objects are additionally at present on show on the neighboring museum, which has lately come below scrutiny over the alleged disappearance of artworks and pages from the artist’s diary. Hyperallergic has reached out to Casa Azul for remark.
In a press launch shared with Hyperallergic, Kahlo’s grand-niece Mara mentioned that making a museum was a long-held dream for the household.
“Frida’s legacy belongs to the world, but it begins here — on this land, in these homes, and in the culture that shaped her,” Mara mentioned. “Museo Casa Kahlo will allow us to tell new stories, share family secrets, host new voices, and build a future that honors her spirit.”
